Danganronpa 2 Heading To PC Next Month

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It feels like just last month we were telling you about the PC release of Spike Chunsoft’s part murder mystery, part visual novel spectacle Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, doesn’t it? Hang on a second, it was just last month! Despite having been previously released on both the PSP in Japan in 2012, and on the PS Vita in 2014 in the west, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair [official site] is now scheduled to arrive on PC on April 18 – just two months after its forerunner touched down on Steam. Here’s a trailer:

As was probably not too obvious at all there, Danganronpa 2 takes place after the events of Trigger Happy Havoc and kicks off with you and your classmates visiting Jabberwock Island for some much needed fun in the sun. Of course, it’s not long before the murderous two-tone anime teddy bear Monokuma from the first game reappears, and so begins another bout of Phoenix Wright-inspired sleuthing and investigating as your fellow peers “start dropping like coconuts.”

Here’s Spike Chunsoft with more on the minutiae of Goodbye Despair’s schoolyard crime solving:

You’ll go head-to-head in all new minigames with the other students during the Class Trial, shooting down their false truths and using your evidence to uncover what really happened. But watch out! If a student is unconvinced, they’ll challenge you to a one-on-one Rebuttal Showdown and force you to defend your argument.

Match up your evidence with your fellow classmates’ arguments and determine who’s really telling the truth. Once you’ve got a suspect in your sights, turn up that tropical heat in a variety of timing and reflex-based game systems to reveal the ultimate truth and escape with your life!

In January, Adam spoke of how he hoped Danganronpa’s sequels would “arrive sooner rather than later.” I doubt he imagined quite so soon, however I don’t imagine he’s complaining. Goodbye Despair’s predecessor, Trigger Happy Havoc, has garnered hundreds of positive reviews since its arrival on Steam less than a month ago, therefore the turnaround is likely down to someone, somewhere finally realising that PC players do enjoy well made Japanese games and that porting them may induce financial returns. Who’d have thunk it?

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair is due to release on April 18 on Steam for $29.99 USD. A UK price is yet to be confirmed, however its forerunner is currently going for £22.99.

9 Comments

My biggest issue with the second game is that they “fleshed out” the minigames in the trial phase… which just makes them even more annoying. I wish it was more like Ace Attorney in that regard but unfortunately even with the difficulty set to maximum smarts, minimal twitch it still requires much less thought than AA and is less fun. Still a nice whodunnit game.

I said in the previous post that I found the story in DR2 to be flatter than DR1 but the characters more interesting and compelling. It’s partly because DR1 has such a bizarre tone it’s hard to know what to expect, while DR2 is easier to predict knowing the kind of tricks that DR1 used. On the other hand, it felt like they knew it would be impossible to recapture the same mystery and confusion so they focused on something they could improve.

I really enjoyed them both* but I found DR2’s approach more fun and engaging, as I cared more about the individual missions and character interactions instead of shuffling around asking, “who’s a guy got to kill to get some plot advancement around here?”

*aside from a plot-twist in DR1 that was frustratingly problematic, especially since it was one of three murder-mystery games I played that year with the same damn twist. I don’t want to go into detail because it is a key to one of the mysteries, but it really was a mark against my enjoyment of the game aside from the quality/execution.

You’re talking about a character twist near the game’s middle, right? Yeah, why does that have to be such an overused thread in mysteries, especially when there’s so much unused room for interesting writing and characters around that topic.

I followed a Let’s Play of the first game to completion before an English release was even a glimmer on the horizon so as much as I wanted to support an official localization, especially on PC, I didn’t see much point in playing it myself and the pricetag isn’t something I’m prepared to spend just for warm fuzzies. But the Let’s Play of the sequel got bogged down by the sheer popularity of the first one bringing the worst sort of posters out of the woodwork and I lost track of it some time ago (not sure if it ever even finished), so I’d be happy to pick it up. Can’t wait.

Love the bear, like the idea of the game, but, if its locked to steam, I’m out, n’ way too tired to keep using this crap ass tool just a play a game. wish the dam thing would f’off to its dam copy scripted console.

If you want specific games, there’s going to be a lot you need Steam to play, especially from major publishers that want DRM. But GOG and Humble have a lot of games available DRM-free, especially indie games.

I actually prefer Steam for organization and updates, but it’s very possible to be a PC gamer without it in recent years.